Saddam’s Capture

 No End To US’s Nightmare

Harkishan Singh Surjeet

NOW that US forces have succeeded in capturing Saddam Hussein from a hideout near Tikrit, and the initial ritual of imperialist camp patting its own back is over, US president George Bush is busy contemplating as to which way the former Iraqi president must be tried. In the meantime, though the CNN reported that Saddam has been shifted to a US installation in Qatar, a member of the puppet Iraqi governing council has denied it.

NEED FOR A FAIR TRIAL

ONE thing is noteworthy here. Bush recently said at a year-end news conference that he “would work with Iraqis to develop a way to try him that will withstand international scrutiny.” Yet, legal experts are not taken in by this assurance and have doubts about the chance of Saddam getting a fair trial. Some of them suggested that the former Iraqi president must be tried by a mixed court of Iraqi and international judges; one of them was of the view that a Sierra Leone type mixed tribunal would be the best for the purpose. Yet, while not going into the legal niceties, one thing is certain --- no trial will be fair if Bush is allowed to remain in command and dictate terms from behind. The best thing in such a case is that if Saddam is to be tried, he should be tried under international law.

There is a simple reason for saying so. As per international law, the people of a country have every right to decide what type of a socio-economic or political system they want, and this includes the right to throw their rulers out if they feel that the latter are not acting in a proper way. Therefore, even if one accepts the argument, for the sake of argument, that Saddam Hussein was a bloodthirsty monster as the Bush father-son duo had been fond of depicting him, the plain fact is that the US had no business to be there in Iraq. But this basic tenet of international law the US openly flouted, and today it is seeking to rule the country by proxy. In such a situation, if Saddam is tried in accordance with Iraqi law, there is reason to fear that US cronies would seek to influence the proceedings. More so because a lack of transparency characterises the US backed administration in the country.     

As for trying Saddam in accordance with American law, the idea cannot be acceptable to any democratic minded person in the world. For, then the US imperialists wouldn’t have to bother much; they would simply dub Saddam as one who was sponsoring “terrorism” and then send him to the electric chair or at least put him behind the bars. This is after all the way they tried General Noriega of Panama who was once their crony. Moreover, whenever it is a matter of dealing with the non-Americans or even the American black or Hispanic people, the US judiciary always displays its prejudices in a naked way. Also, it was the US judiciary that obliged a defeated Bush by declaring him winner.

The meaning is simple. Even though Bush may not like the idea, it is the UN and the International Court of Justice that will have to intervene and try Saddam in accordance with international law. This is the only way the world can hope that the deposed Iraqi president would be given a fair trial. 

BUSH IS THE BIGGEST CRIMINAL

YET, despite everything that has been said above, the biggest truth is that it is George Bush who needs to be tried in the first place. As we said above, the US had absolutely no reason to be in Iraq. Yet, as the whole world knows, the US took the plea that Saddam had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) which, it was alleged, posed a threat to the US’s and the world’s security. But we also know that it was nothing but seeking an alibi to get rid of Saddam Hussein. One cannot but note here that Americans themselves had built up Saddam in order to get rid of a regime in Baghdad and later used him against Iran. But the same Americans later turned hostile to him and began baying for his blood when they could not dump him or capture him the way they had captured Noriega. It was then that they raised the WMD issue.

The rest is history. A UN inspection team spent years together in Iraq, went to every nook and corner of the country in search of the alleged WMDs, but ultimately said the country did not have any at all. Former Swedish foreign minister Hans Blix, who headed the team, put its findings in clear terms in his report to the UN. But, bent upon getting rid of Saddam and having a puppet regime in Iraq, Bush simply refused to accept the report, ignored the UN system and went ahead to launch his illegitimate war against Iraq. On his part, in the book he is writing, Blix proposes to expose the politicians who were itching for a war against Iraq and took recourse to dubious measures to justify it.

And who can forget that the real issue was not of the WMDs? The real issue was oil, of which Iraq has the second biggest reserve in the world, able to last for at least six decades with the present rate of world oil consumption. The real ‘crime’ of Saddam Hussein was that he was not prepared to give the Yankees an unlimited freedom to exploit his country’s oil reserves. This can be a good lesson for all those who are hankering for getting the Americans’ patronage --- the US cares for its cronies only till they allow it to exploit their resources at the cost of their own national interests.

The recent row over Iraq contracts also reveals the real face of imperialist lust for wealth, in all nakedness. As for countries like India, Bush has magnanimously promised to give them a few crumbs of the pie.

One may also recall here how the Yankees duped the former Iraqi president. There is clear evidence to tell us that it was the Americans who in August 1990 egged on Saddam to attack Kuwait and then launched a war against Iraq in early 1991 in the name of Kuwait’s liberation. It is another thing that they could not then depose Saddam --- neither by force nor by inhuman sanctions. The Yankees succeeded only in taking the lives of at least two million innocent Iraqis, mostly children, the aged, and lactating or pregnant mothers. Numerous specialists have noted that these deaths occurred only because of lack of adequate food and life saving medicines. Obviously, the guilt for all this squarely lies with US imperialists who have no regard for human life.

One may ask: Where is a tribunal to try all those who have no compunction in taking innocent lives for their narrow gains? How much one wishes that there should have been an independent tribunal for the purpose!   

Thus there is no doubt that the biggest war criminals of today are the Yankee imperialists. Not to talk of their past crimes, they bombed Afghanistan and Sudan on flimsy pleas and fought three wars in less than four years --- against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Nay, with their thirst for blood still not satiated, they keep threatening Cuba, Iran, DPR Korea, Syria and some other countries by turn. In Latin America, they tried to plot a coup against Chavez of Venezuela, and are conspiring against Lula of Brazil.

The lesson is clear. If it is not possible to try the whole bunch of imperialist warmongers, at least their main figure --- George W Bush --- deserves to be tried for the crime of the whole wretched lot.

THE CHOICE IS CLEAR

YES, we are aware that nothing of the kind is going to take place today. But the democratic minded people around the world are not going to forget the imperialist war crimes, what to talk of condoning them. As we said in the November 30 issue of this paper, anger against imperialist crimes is gradually building up in all parts of the globe and the coming months may see more anti-imperialist actions. There is no place for any sectarianism here. All those who cherish peace, who want a nuclear free world, who want to protect their nations’ sovereignty from hegemonistic designs in today’s unipolar world, who want to have an opportunity for independent development will have to come together for resisting the US geo-strategic designs. The task brooks no delay. Every big or small forum has to be utilised. The question of choosing this or that path of development is meaningful only when nations are free to choose. Hence, there can be no excuse for not coming together against imperialist depredations that are turning increasingly menacing.    

The choice is clear: one has to stand up against imperialist depredations or be prepared to suffer a new round of neo-colonial domination and exploitation.

IRAQIS NEED OUR SUPPORT

IT is here that the question of coming to the Iraqi people’s support assumes importance. Particularly after Saddam’s fall, the Iraqis have risen in resistance against the occupiers, and by now they have made it clear that they are not going to give up fighting or allow the occupation forces any peace. In fact they are fighting an unequal fight today. Virtually resourceless, they are today pitted against the biggest military power in the world. But they are undaunted.

How the people of Iraq are fighting today, can be glimpsed from a recent Reuter report from Baghdad. It says: “Toy cars, Coke cans and animal carcasses have something in common in Iraq --- they are all used to kill American soldiers with ruthless efficiency.

“Guerrillas fighting the occupation fill the objects with explosives, place them on the side of the road and press a remote control button when US troops pass by. In military parlance it is known as an improvised explosive device (IED), the weapon of choice for insurgents who have killed 193 US troops in post-war Iraq. It doesn’t take expertise or much money to build one. C4 or other explosives are placed into ordinary objects, such as soft drink cans or paper bags, and wired to a remote control device.… high-tech weapons are not effective against an IED laid by an enemy far enough away to press the remote and run” (quoted from National Herald, December 12).

Is it terrorism? By no means. It is a people’s resistance, perfectly legitimate. All this reminds one of the glorious fight of Vietnamese people against the Yankees, in which they forced the latter to run away from their country.

The Iraqi resistance has even forced Bush to think of handing over governance to a puppet council and bring his soldiers back home. The details are common knowledge.

Here, one may quote from a report from Baghdad by Robert Fisk who has no love lost for Saddam Hussein. Fisk quotes an American soldier as saying: “We are not going to go home any sooner because of Saddam getting caught….. The arrest of Saddam is meaningless. We still don’t know why we came here.”

In yet another dispatch, the same reporter says: “Indeed, more and more Iraqis were saying before Saddam’s capture that the one reason they would not join the resistance to US occupation was the fear that --- if the Americans withdrew --- Saddam would return to power. Now that fear has been taken away. So the nightmare is over --- and the nightmare is about to begin. For both the Iraqis and for us.”

The implication is clear: the resistance is not going to subside with Saddam’s capture. If anything, it is bound to intensify. It is thus that Iraqi resistance is part of the worldwide anti-imperialist struggle, and the independence loving people cannot but extend solidarity to the Iraqi resistors.